Zen Studios Sticks By Pinball FX3 Censorship, Understands Unhappiness

Zen Studios has gotten a bit of flack for censoring artwork on their pinball tables, scrubbing artworks clean of blood and gore. However, the studio has stood by their commitment to ensure that the game is family friendly.

Speaking to Ars Technica, Zen Studios VP of Publishing, Mel Kirk, said that Panball FX prides itself as a family friendly game and will not destroy that reputation just because of a few artworks.

”We pride ourselves on Pinball FX being a very family-friendly game. People expect a specific type of game associated with certain types of content. I’m not going to jeopardize all those relationships, all that history, all those families that play the game for some bits of artwork.”

”Does it bother us enough that people are mad at us?… It’s a vocal minority, but nonetheless they’re very important and we want to make them happy too.”

“For all the hardcore players that don’t like what we’ve done, we have just as many people saying thank you for doing this, because now my kids can play too, and they now know these games. If the artwork and some of the things that are more mature are super important to people, we’ll hear them and we’ll try to make those available, maybe under a different label or a different game. But FX3 is a family-friendly game.”

He also said that the studio had considered making a more mature themed pinball game for critics of the move. Still, the studio is unsure how much resources they are willing to pour into a mature version of the game.

“In extreme cases like this, something Zen has considered for a while is, is there another iteration of Pinball FX that can exist It’s a completely different game experience, it has more mature content, it can have blood and guts, there can be more mature themes, simulated gambling. That is something we’re actively talking about internally right now… It’s really just a matter of how much we want to focus on this.”

Unlike some Pinball franchises, Pinball FX3 currently holds a E10+ and it is likely that Zen Studios would like to continue to hold on to the rating.